Abby hopped along in the sunshine as her mother waved goodbye. Oh, what a beautiful day, thought Abby. Her mother said she was grown up enough to walk down to school by herself. Abby was very proud.

Suddenly she heard a loud groan. ‘Ooooooh,’ came the noise. Abby was startled. She did not know where the noise came from. She looked around. ‘Oooooh,’ went the voice again. It sounded as if someone was in great pain.

Abby looked over the fence that separated the park from the road. What she saw astonished her. 3 pairs of teary eyes looked back at her. Now Abby wasn’t surprised because they were crying. She was surprised because those eyes belonged to 3 toys. An elephant, a soldier and a teddy bear. The elephant was holding its stomach, groaning.

‘Please help us,’ cried the toys.

Abby rubbed her eyes. Was this really happening?

‘You can talk?’ said Abby, very surprised.

‘Yes,’ replied the teddy. ‘Please help us. We belong to the toy shop down the road. We were naughty and escaped last night,’ he hung his head in shame. ‘We had seen children play in this park and we wanted to enjoy too. It’s very boring sitting on the shelves, waiting to be sold.’

With that the teddy bear started crying very loudly.

‘Please take us back to the shop,’ said the soldier, marching up to Abby. ‘Poor elephant has a very bad stomach ache and cannot move. We are all very small and cannot lift him.’

Abby was puzzled but these toys needed her help. She felt very important.

‘Hop into my bag,’ she said as she leaned over the fence and opened her bag.

The toys gave a cheer and jumped in. All except the elephant who couldn’t move. Abby picked him up and gently put him in the bag too.

Then she walked down the road to the toy shop. She opened the bag and the toys jumped out. Soldier ran into the shop and drove out a toy truck. They loaded the elephant in and ran off into the shop yelling, ‘Thank you Abby. Thank you sooo much.’